“There’s nothing like a jolly good disaster to get people to start doing something.”

My Rainforests Project has three main elements. Firstly, to determine how much funding the rainforest countries need to re-orientate their economies so that the trees are worth more alive than dead.

Your greatest achievement is to love me.

The whole imposing edifice of modern medicine is like the celebrated tower of Pisa – slightly off balance.

I think we need to recover the depth, the subtlety, the generosity of imagination, the respect for wisdom that so marked Islam in its great ages.

If your children want to alter society, listen to their reasons and the idealism behind them. Don’t crush them with some clever remark straight away.

It seems to me self-evident that we cannot have capitalism without capital and, very importantly, that the ultimate source of all economic capital is Nature’s capital

To get the best results you must talk to your vegetables.

Humility is to make a right estimate of one’s self. It is no humility for a man to think less of himself than he ought, though it might rather puzzle him to do that.

Painting transports me into another dimension which, quite literally, refreshes parts of the soul which other activities can’t reach.

Fast food may appear to be cheap food and, in the literal sense it often is, but that is because huge social and environmental costs are being excluded from the calculations.

I believe passionately that everyone has a particular God-given ability.

We have spent the best part of the past century enthusiastically testing the world to utter destruction; not looking closely enough at the long-term impact our actions will have.

Hong Kong has created one of the most successful societies on Earth.

Something as curious as the monarchy won’t survive unless you take account of people’s attitudes. After all, if people don’t want it, they won’t have it.

It is frightening how dependent on drugs we are all becoming and how easy it is for doctors to prescribe them as the universal panacea for our ills.

I find myself born into this particular position. I’m determined to make the most of it. And to do whatever I can to help. And I hope I leave things behind a little bit better than I found them.

When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad.

Hearing voices no one else can hear isn’t a good sign, even in the wizarding world.

You have to feed your mind daily with the good, clean, pure, powerful and positive.

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.

Whatever good things we build end up building us.

I like a man who’s good, but not too good – for the good die young, and I hate a dead one.

To encourage literature and the arts is a duty which every good citizen owes to his country.

One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.